Education: The Heart of FPMT

FPMT Education Services recently made available a precious deity card designed and translated by Lama Zopa Rinpoche. This card features an image of Amoghapasha, a deity connected to Avalokiteshvara (Tib.: Chenrezig), the Buddha of Compassion, and a description of the “unbelievable benefits” of just seeing his image, including becoming free of the “eight great hells and eight great fears.”

Lama Zopa Rinpoche recommends that this image be printed as large as possible and displayed publicly in order that others may benefit.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche watching His Holiness the Dalai Lama on an iPad, Taos, New Mexico, USA, July 2017. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Dharma books contain the teachings of the Buddha and thus they have the power to protect against lower rebirth and to point the‭ ‬way to enlightenment‭. ‬Therefore‭, ‬they should be treated with respect‭. ‬It is important to note that this includes tablets, phones, laptops, and hard drives containing Dharma.

During this year’s Light of the Path retreat, Lama Zopa Rinpoche made a point to discuss this. Rinpoche explained that if your iPad (or other digital device) contains Dharma, it should be treated with the same respect as a Dharma text and viewed as “revealing the path to become free from samsara and achieve enlightenment, so you have to respect as rare sublime Dharma.”

These materials, whether hard copy or digital, should be kept off the floor, the bed, and places where people‭ ‬sit or walk. Dharma materials should not be stepped over‭. ‬They should be covered or protected for transporting and kept in a high‭, ‬clean place separate‭ ‬from more mundane materials‭. ‬Other objects should not be placed on top of Dharma books and materials‭ including your mala, reading glasses, etc.

If it is necessary to dispose of written Dharma materials‭, ‬they should be burned rather than thrown in the trash‭. ‬When burning Dharma texts‭, ‬visualize that the letters of the texts to be burned transform into an‭ ‬AH‭ and the‭ ‬AH‭ ‬absorbs into your heart‭. ‬Imagine burning blank paper‭. ‬As you burn‭, ‬you can recite‭ ‬OM AH HUM‭ ‬or the‭ ‬Heart Sutra‭ ‬while meditating on emptiness‭. ‬

Lama Zopa Rinpoche making prayers in front of the new Atisha statue at Kadampa Center, North Carolina, USA. Lama Atisha was author of Lamp on the Path to Enlightenment, the first text that established the lamrim genre.

FPMT Education Services would like to remind you of several resources available to help you integrate the lamrim into daily life. We have created a webpage devoted to lamrim with links to free resources and texts to assist you in your study and practice.

“The most unbelievably important thing in our life is lamrim,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaches in the module “Advice for Realizing Lamrim,” which is part of Living in the Path, FPMT Education Services’ essential lamrim program. “The practice of the three principal aspects of the path is the most important thing. This is the most important, more important than a job, money, or anything else in our life. It is the most important thing.”

Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave advice suggesting that students follow a lamrim outlineand meditate on each subject for two weeks or one month until all subjects have been completed. “The amount of time for meditation is up to the individual, but the general advice is to finish the lamrim in one year,” Rinpoche said. “To meditate like this each year—wow, wow, wow! That would be great.”

To help students follow this advice, we have created a schedule to help you plan daily lamrim meditation sessions over the course of a calendar year. It was created on the basis of the book The Essential Nectarby Geshe Rabten, which is available through the Foundation Store. The schedule is available as an Excel spreadsheet and PDF.

“Root Institute is offering the residential Basic Program for the in-depth study of Buddhist philosophy and psychology,” shared spiritual program coordinator Ven. Khadro. “The design of the program means that participants are welcome to study one module, one year, or the whole program. And to study the subjects of the second year, it is not compulsory to study the subjects of first year—students can join the program at any stage. In our first year (2016–2017), a small, enthusiastic, and harmonious group of students gathered from all over the world to study with Geshe Rabga, a lharampa geshe from Lhowa Khamtsen at Sera Je Monastery, and our center’s first resident geshe.”

“Three subjects will be covered: ‘Tenets’ (September 4 to November 25) introduces the four main Buddhist philosophical schools; ‘Heart Sutra’ (November 27 to December 15) explores emptiness and the five Mahayana paths; and ‘Calm Abiding and Special Insight’ (January 15 to April 18) covers the concluding topics in Lama Tsongkhapa’s middling lamrim text.

Geshe Rabga

“Studying in Bodhgaya, where the Buddha manifested enlightenment, is extremely auspicious and brings great blessings. Typically, during our winter season, Root Institute has the great good fortune to host Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and to have visits from other high lamas and renowned teachers.

“Students are also able to participate in the other short courses of our spiritual program, which increases their understanding of Buddhism and affords the opportunity meet many like-minded people and create meaningful and rewarding friendships.”

Of course, any other meritorious activities often advised by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, such as recitation of the Sanghata Sutra, Sutra of Golden Light, etc., with extensive dedications, are also good to do on these days. These texts are available on our sutras page.

Root Institute, Bodhgaya, February 2017. Excerpted from the video recording.

In February 2017, Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave a three-and-a-half hour teaching at Root Institute in Bodhgaya, India, on the essence of lojong, the Tibetan word for “thought transformation” or “mind training.”

In this new Living in the Path module “Transforming Kaka into Gold,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains a particular type of lojong practice that makes use of suffering and problems in the path to enlightenment. This practice involves changing our usual mindset of disliking and rejecting problems into one that sees problems as rare opportunities to engage in Dharma practice and come to want them, need them, and make use of them. In short, by doing this lojong practice we become able to transform kaka (suffering and problems, including cancer and impending death) into gold (a method for developing bodhichitta and attaining full enlightenment). As Rinpoche says:

Although the whole lamrim, the graduated path to enlightenment, is lojong, there is a particular lojong found in the lamrim that utilizes obstacles and misfortunes in the path to enlightenment. Like transforming poison into medicine or transforming kaka into gold, by transforming obstacles, they become the utmost need in your life. All the obstacles to practicing Dharma, the misfortunes, and black magic, and when nothing is working and everything is stuck, by practicing the particular lojong from the lamrim you utilize these in the path to enlightenment, in the path to the happiness of all sentient beings, not just their temporary happiness but their ultimate happiness, the enlightenment of all sentient beings.

All of the modules of the Living in the Path program are available on the FPMT Online Center. This program is ideal for anyone who wishes to deepen their personal practice and develop the realizations of the path to enlightenment by relying on Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s heart advice and teachings. As the teachings often assume familiarity with the lamrim, participants are recommended to have previously received teachings in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.

In Cultivating Mindfulness of Bodhichitta in Daily Activities, Lama Zopa Rinpoche shows us how to take the essence of our precious human life by transforming our normal daily activities—such as sitting down, standing up, washing, and dressing—into a cause for enlightenment by accompanying them with a bodhichitta motivation to benefit all sentient beings.

As Rinpoche explains in the text:

Anyone who is seeking the state of omniscience needs to attend to the many methods for collecting merits and purifying delusions. The Omniscient One, who was very skillful and had great compassion for us sentient beings, explained that even the activities that we normally do—such as eating, sleeping, sitting, walking, and doing our jobs—can become ways to collect unfathomable virtue and skies of merit. With mindfulness of bodhichitta, they can become not only beneficial to oneself, but beneficial to all sentient beings. The Buddha explained this to us who do not have a bodhichitta realization. This is how everything we do can be dedicated to become a cause of happiness for all sentient beings. This is something that we can practice immediately. Then all the activities we do in the breaks between our lamrim meditations will be done with bodhichitta and the thought to make them beneficial for all sentient beings. Our daily activities will become a cause for us to attain omniscience so that we can liberate sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to enlightenment.

Students who would like to delve deeper into this topic are invited to start the Living in the Path course “Taking the Essence,” which includes the module “Bodhichitta Mindfulness.” This Online Learning Center module includes video teachings from Lama Zopa Rinpoche as well as an introduction to the practices by Ven. Sarah Thresher, additional readings, access to a discussion forum, and other helpful resources for those wishing to study and practice this material in an organized way.

July 27 is Chokhor Duchen, which is one of the four great holy days of the Tibetan Buddhist calendar and marks the occasion of Buddha’s first teaching. Specific advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche for practices to do on Buddha Multiplying Days such as Chokhor Duchen can be found here.

As merit is multiplied 100 million times on this holy day, it would be an excellent opportunity to follow Rangjung Neljorma Khadro Namsel Drönme’s advice that students of Lama Zopa Rinpoche offer recitations of the Vajra Cutter Sutraand Dependent Arising: A Praise of the Buddha(Tendrel Topa) for Rinpoche’s long life.

The achievement of both liberation from samsara and enlightenment depend on realizing emptiness—how the “I” and all phenomena do not exist at all from their own side, even though this is how they appear to us ordinary sentient beings.

In the new Living in the Path module “Are You Sitting on Your I?,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche speaks extensively about how the real I that appears to us is a total hallucination, how believing in a real I is the root of samsara, and how it is necessary to become free from this hallucination in order to achieve freedom from samsara and reach enlightenment.

Rinpoche begins his teaching, given during the 2016 Kopan November Course, by pointing out that not only can a real I not be found anywhere, even a merely labeled I can’t be found anywhere, even though this I actually exists. In order to make this point clear, Rinpoche engages in a wonderful debate with the Kopan course teacher who has studied Madhyamaka philosophy extensively. Rinpoche manages to skillfully corner him with the consequence that if his merely labeled I is on his cushion — which the course teacher said it is — then he is sitting on his merely labeled I!

All of the modules of the Living in the Path program are available on the FPMT Online Center. This program is ideal for anyone who wishes to deepen their personal practice and develop the realizations of the path to enlightenment by relying on Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s heart advice and teachings. As the teachings often assume familiarity with the lamrim, participants are recommended to have previously received teachings in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.

The Inner Job Description Card (Mindfulness Practice Tool) was created to help those offering service to FPMT track their progress throughout the day as they attempt to develop the inner professional and subdue outer expressions of ignorance, anger, attachment, and selfish motivation. As Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains, “You have all these external professions—how to do this, how to do that from school, college, university—but without inner professionalism: how to live life, how to do everything mentally, how to do everything—business, professional activity, whatever you do—with pure attitude, positive mind, non-ignorance, non-anger, non-attachment, especially with the non-selfish mind.”

During the 2014 CPMT meeting in Bendigo, Australia, François Lecointre led a talk and meditation on the Inner Job Description. All are welcome to watch and participate via YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0gYX3CL8Ew

Khadro-la (Rangjung Neljorma Khadro Namsel Drönme) is consulted every year for advice on practices to clear obstacles for Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s health and long life. In 2016 she advised that all the students in all FPMT centers, projects, and services come together and offer a long life puja to Rinpoche and do 100,000 tsog offerings. This advice resulted in the beautiful long life puja held March 13 at Amitabha Buddhist Centre in Singapore. Khadro-la was not physically present at the long life puja, but the day before, she spontaneously composed a prayer for Lama Zopa Rinpoche, which was offered during the puja. The English translation of the prayer was read for all to hear while Rinpoche received the prayer in Tibetan.

Recently, two Bhutanese singers, Pema Lhamo and Pema Samdrup, composed two tunes for this prayer, both of which Lama Zopa Rinpoche enjoyed. He asked that their recordings be played at big retreats during break times or while students are waiting in the gompa. He also asked that both or either of these tunes be learned and used when offering the prayer. We are delighted to offer Rinpoche’s students these lovely tunes—with music or with guitar—and we hope that you will download and learn them for your own practice.

This year, Khadro-la advised that students of Lama Zopa Rinpoche offer recitations of the Vajra Cutter Sutraand Dependent Arising: A Praise of the Buddha(Tendrel Topa) for Rinpoche’s long life. FPMT International Office has requested everyone to join in and keep track of their recitations during the rest of this Tibetan year. The total number of recitations will be offered to Rinpoche at a later date.

In the lam-rim, there’s some advice on how to get up early in the morning without being overwhelmed by sleep. Before getting into bed the night before, wash your feet while thinking of light. Try it; it works.